Major corporations, small businesses and individuals (the “Shipper(s)”) ship billions of parcels every year. Each parcel carrier (the “Carrier(s)”) has its own unique rating schedule, delivery and pickup rules and schedules, and certification requirements.
Within an enterprise, such as a corporation or governmental entity, a parcel to be shipped may pass through a number of different individuals and departments within the organization before shipment is accomplished. In a paper-based or non-integrated shipping system environment, the enterprise suffers lower productivity due to several employees within the enterprise repeatedly writing or entering the same or similar information. Consider the following illustrative example.
A customer service employee in the customer service department of a corporation is contacted by one of the corporation's customers. The customer orders a replacement part for a product previously purchased from the corporation. In a telephone conversation, the customer service employee records in writing shipping and payment information about the customer and the customer's order for the particular replacement part. The customer agrees to pay for shipping as well as for the replacement part. The customer service employee forwards the order and the shipping and payment information to the parts department. An employee in the parts department receives the order and the shipping and payment information. The parts department employee locates the replacement part, forwards the replacement part and shipping instructions to the shipping department and forwards the payment information to the accounting department for processing. The shipping department employee writes, or enters into a computer, much of the same information that was previously recorded by other employees of the same corporation, and analyzes any specific shipping requirements specified by the customer, to complete paperwork to ship the package in accordance with the corporation's shipping policies. The shipping department employee notifies the accounting department of the amount to be charged for shipping. An accounting department employee enters the payment information into a computer accounting system, processes the payment for the part and for the shipping, and sends a notification to the shipping department that payment for the part and for shipping the part has been processed.
In the illustrative example above and as is the case in many enterprises, the shipping origination employee, the customer service employee, is not a shipping professional. Nor are the shipping intermediaries, such as the parts department and accounting department employees. Such shipping origination and shipping intermediary employees may arrange for only a single shipment a day, or may need to ship many packages at once. Such shipping origination or shipping intermediary employees are often unfamiliar with shipping industry terms, and require that shipping options be described explained in plain English. They do not know or may often not remember corporate shipping policies such as which carrier to use under certain circumstances, what account number should be used, whether to enter charge-back codes, whether to fill in the declared value, etc. They may record the improper information on shipping requests.
Mailroom and shipping dock personnel, such as the shipping department employee described above, are, more than likely, professional shippers. They will be trained on the shipping policies and procedures for the organization, and part of their job may entail enforcing such policies and procedures. They may be familiar with the shipping system of at least one carrier. They spend significant amounts of time transcribing information from paper-based shipping requests onto Carrier airbills or into Carrier systems and often correcting, if they catch them, mistakes made by shipping origination or intermediary employees in recording shipping request information.
Shipping Managers set shipping policies for the enterprise. They are in charge of cost centers. Because they run cost centers and do not generate revenue for their company, they are sometimes rewarded on their ability to save money. Their job revolves around reducing costs and assigning costs to the appropriate department. Because their job is to reduce costs, Shipping Managers are not typically receptive to purchasing system solutions that have high system Total Cost of Ownership.
Shipping Management may work at different levels or locations within their organization. Some shipping management personnel may only need to review reports, while others may be responsible for coordinating with carriers, monitoring rates and establishing employee-user shipping privileges for each of possibly several corporate locations. Shipping Management Support Staff are responsible for routine administrative tasks.
Many enterprise shipping departments (“Enterprise Shippers”) manually refer to a mixture of separate, individual paper-based and online systems (a “non-integrated multiple standalone Carrier system environment”) to determine the rate for shipping a particular parcel and to determine the optimal carrier with which to ship that particular parcel according to the constraints and requirements involved. With regard to shipping a particular parcel, Enterprise Shippers must consider a combination of factors, including but not limited to parcel dimensions, parcel weight, origin/destination specifications, parcel value, parcel value loss protection, budgetary, timing, pickup, delivery, delivery notification, delivery service, and other service option constraints and requirements.
In a non-integrated multiple standalone Carrier system environment, effective comparison shopping across multiple carriers is generally difficult and time-consuming. Many enterprise shipping departments rely instead on one or two familiar Carriers rather than comparison shopping each parcel across multiple Carriers.
Once an enterprise shipping department employee (also “Enterprise Shipper”) selects a particular Carrier, the Enterprise Shipper must label the parcel with the information appropriate for the selected Carrier. In a non-integrated multiple standalone Carrier system environment, the Enterprise Shipper must interpret and apply a particular Carrier's rules and requirements in order to prepare the necessary manifest documents to ship a particular parcel.
An Enterprise Shipper that deals with a particular Carrier on a recurring basis may set up an account with the particular Carrier (“Enterprise Account-Holder Shippers”). Some Carriers provide Enterprise Account-Holder Shippers with a copy of that Carrier's software system if one exists. Each individual Carrier's software system has its own unique look and feel.
Rather than learn multiple standalone Carrier systems, some Enterprise Shippers choose instead to rely on a manual system, including the manual preparation of parcel labels; some develop a dependency on a single Carrier-provided system even though such a policy often results in non-optimal shipping costs.
An Enterprise Shipping Management solution is needed that increases shipping origination, shipping intermediary, and shipping user productivity and that reduces shipping costs, improves shipping management, and has a low system Total Cost of Ownership.